It’s been raining and raining here in Arizona.  Honestly, I feel like I fell asleep and woke up in Seattle or something.   I love it because it gives me a perfect excuse to stay inside and do art!  But I know the good outside weather is coming…soon!  Plus, due to classes and work and other such craziness as sleeping and eating,  haven’t had the big chunks of time that I’m used to, which means I’m not getting very much painting done.

Clearly, the situation calls for a new project!  I’ve always kept journals.  And after I acquired my first SARK books in college, I started making little coloring doodling journals.    But then somewhere along the way, I heard about art journaling, visual journaling, all this mixed media stuff, and I thought that’s what I needed to do.  So I spent months and months and then years looking at web sites, studying journaling books, going to art camp, trying to figure out the best way to journal, and meanwhile, I’d completely stopped journaling.

I’ve made a few stabs here and there, but honestly, it’s never really clicked with me.  At least not in the way that I thought I was supposed to be doing it.  Well, I was home sick on Friday, and took the opportunity to sit on my couch with my big pile of SARK books, and I was like, OH YEAH!!   And suddenly I knew I needed to go back to MY journaling style, and that it is PEFECTLY, COMPLETELY OK, JUST THE WAY IT IS!!!!!

So I bound up a new journal with happy watercolor paper, got a new little kit of watercolors, unwrapped them like candy, and spent all day Sunday just drawing and coloring away.  And it makes me so so happy!!!

Monkey mind

Brain Train

Let Go

Yay!!  This journal is basically going to be a place to collect all the words and bits of wisdom that are scattered throughout all my millions of writing journals, because I never remember all the good things I read and learn.  It’s like a little happy reference guide!